A teenage singer from Birkhill wowed judges in the final of The Voice Kids UK – but was not crowned the winner.
Aimee McKelvie, 13, took to the stage in front of coaches will.i.am, Pixie Lott, Danny Jones and Ronan Keating on Wednesday night’s episode.
She was one of 16 singers in the final episode of the series, but missed out on a place in the last four, when the finalists were further whittled down before a winner was chosen.
The Monifieth High School pupil and three other contestants on Team Ronan – Sebastian, Freya and Lyla – impressed the judges with a group cover of Mariah Carey’s Without You.
Team Ronan gives ‘spectacular’ performance
The four singers received a deluge of praise for their performance before Keating was forced to whittle the group down to one contestant, when he picked Sebastian.
Will.i.am called the performance “spectacular”.
He said: “You guys did an amazing job.
“You guys should all be super proud of yourselves.”
Keating said: “Guys, I am so proud of you.
“You’ve just taken it up another level. No nerves whatsoever.
“You all sang the lyric ‘I can’t give anymore’ – and you’re so right, you can’t. You’ve given it all. You’ve left it on the stage.
“That’s what I wanted. I’m so proud of you.
“This is toughest decision I could ever imagine making.”
But he made the difficult decision to take Sebastian to the last four, meaning the end of Aimee’s journey on The Voice.
Aimee was handed a place in the final 16 after impressing the former Boyzone singer with her version of Cat Stevens’ hit Wild World.
She was watched from the sidelines by mum Vikki, dad Lee and brother Charlie.
Birkhill teen ‘proud’ of how far she got
The teen – who was only 12 years old when the show was recorded – told The Courier she was proud of herself after watching the final episode at home with her family.
She said: “I was so nervous until I came on the TV, it was so scary but I’m very proud.
“It was very fun. It was a challenging song because I didn’t know it but I got the hang of it.”
She said she has received lots of messages of support from friends and family. “My phone is buzzing, buzzing, buzzing constantly.”
Dad Lee said: “We are so proud of her, she was incredible.
“She absolutely loved every minute of it and was over the moon with how far she got.
“The fact she got as far as she did considering the competition she had was amazing – some of the kids were absolutely outstanding.
“Sebastian was fantastic. He was really cute and we were happy he got through – although we would have been happy if any of the four [on Team Ronan] got through.”
Team Pixie’s Israella Chris was crowned winner of the show.
The Voice Kids UK’s new series aired over three episodes this week on STV.
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